CFO Challenges 2026: Insights, trends and what's next

Antoine is the Country Lead of Deloitte Malta's Strategy & Transactions practice, providing integrated advisory services from strategy development through execution. He advises boards, shareholders, and executive teams on M&A, valuation, restructuring, capital allocation, cost optimisation and business transformation, with a key focus on embedding sustainability and long-term value creation into transaction and transformation strategies. Antoine also serves as the industry sector leader for Transportation and Telecoms, Media & Entertainment. Antoine leads a comprehensive ESG advisory portfolio encompassing double materiality assessments under CSRD, gap analyses and remediation programmes, carbon footprint assessments, and EU Taxonomy eligibility and alignment assessments. He acts as Deloitte Malta's local ESG Assurance Subject Matter Expert and is a part-time lecturer at the University of Malta, delivering lectures on CSRD and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). Beyond client work, Antoine contributes actively to the profession, sitting on several working groups within the Malta Institute of Accountants including the ESEF, CSRD, Sustainability Financing Learning & Education, and Sustainable Finance Assurance working groups. Previously, Antoine served as Audit & Assurance Director, leading ESG Assurance and the Accounting & Reporting Advisory (ARA) and Accounting Operations Advisory (AOA) pillars. His work encompassed ESG advisory and assurance engagements, internal control gap analyses, IFRS training, impact assessments and implementation projects, complex accounting advisory across multiple industries, and ESEF advisory and assurance engagements. He delivered large-scale projects across Financial Services, Construction, Retail & Distribution, and Aviation sectors, and held statutory audit responsibility primarily within the Financial Services industry, managing a diverse portfolio including equity-listed entities, insurance companies, investment managers, pension schemes, and pension administrators. Between 2015 and 2017, Antoine completed a 24-month secondment with Deloitte London, providing audit and advisory services to multinational, FTSE-listed, and national insurance entities. He obtained PCAOB accreditation and worked on the audit of a US-listed insurance advisory and broking group, leading SOX 404 reporting at group level. While in London, he was a member of the insurance technical accounting team, delivering IFRS impact and readiness assessments, acting as technical accountant for one of the UK's largest insurance intermediaries, and contributing to the IPO readiness assessment of a leading UK life insurer.

Michaela Valletta is a Manager within Deloitte Malta's Strategy, Risk & Transactions business, with experience across finance transformation, financial reporting and sustainability advisory. She is currently supporting the Finance function of a local bank through a major transformation programme, with a focus on project coordination, stakeholder alignment and supporting the function throughout the transition. Michaela has also supported clients across a range of financial reporting, regulatory and sustainability-related engagements and has contributed to the development of Deloitte Malta's ESG offering.